Topic: NTL

NTL-Telewest Business (yes that is correct) have announced that it has now fully integrated its two main networks.

Speaking on the first anniversary of the combined company, managing director Stephen Beynon said work to being together the two main networks had now finished and this allowed the company to offer businesses an alternative to BT.

The network covers 85 percent of businesses with most of it's connections outside of the 'M25 ring' which they claim is unlike most of it's competitors apart from BT.

He said that so far the company had invested £13bn on it's network and gained £657m of revenue, with half of that coming from IP based sales, up 150% from last year.
Also he gave the reason why the company didn't rename itself to Virgin Media as the rest of the group did earlier this year, "We didn't want to get drowned in the noise" he said.

Pipex have been using The Hoff to promote it's broadband, now NTL are also pining it's hopes on a Hollywood star.

With the start of it's re-branding underway it has snapped up Pulp Fiction star Uma Thurman as part of the £20m marketing campaign to inform consumers of the changes.

The changes which they are hoping customers will notice are those related to NTL's reputation for poor customer service, the telco is keen to to stress that the re-branding is more than just a name change and will instead involve NTL working to improve all operations. These were the very same changes that they were keen to announce after their merger with Telewest, although the company is still seen as one with two-tiers, Telewest still provides the better service and reliability.

Richard Branson has told customers in a letter that the changes are aimed at giving 'the service you deserve'.

NTL:Telewest are conducting trials to limit it's cable customers speed automatically to 5Mbps, in effect halving their speed according to Cable Forum.

At the present this only effects the Swansea area, but has also been tested in Preston, but no details have been released as to whether this will be followed by a nationwide rollout.

Heavy users will see the shaping between 4:00pm and midnight, although the cableco haven't given any details on what conditions will trigger the throttling. They claim that 10 percent of it's customers are using 70 percent of their network capacity, although this figure is common for most ISPs.
The throttling, it's claimed, is justified under clause 4.3 of their Terms & Conditions which allows them to "reduce, suspend or terminate your Internet Services." if customers break their Fair Usage Policy.

Traffic management has become a common bone of contention for ADSL users for a long time but it seems cable customers are having the same problems.

NTL:Telewest, was suffering a national breakdown in it's services yesterday with some users left without any connection.

The problem with it's cable connections started at about 6pm last night and although the cableco hoped to have the problem resolved by 10pm, any business' connections were still unavailable in the morning.

Everything now seems to be running smoothly after NTL:Telewest said was an "issue" in its £13bn network, but promised to give more details about the incident later.

Telewest will be introducing network throttling on its 'unlimited' Blueyonder broadband connections.

Since early November NTL/Telewest customers have been complaining via chatrooms and online forums of bandwidth problems, but until now there has been no response from the ISP.

 Now they admit that they have been restricting traffic for some of it's heavy users, which hasn't gone down very well.

ITV has formally rejected a takeover bid £4.7bn takeover bid by cable operator NTL.

The NTL bid was worth £1.20 for each ITV share, but they were outbid for Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB who took 18 percent of ITV's shares for £1.35 each. This prompted Richard Branson, who is NTL's biggest shareholder to call for Ofcom to investigate.

It seems that NTL can't get enough of merging with other companies, first it was Telewest, then Virgin, and now it's looking to merge with broadcaster ITV.

Talks have been held between the two parties, but ITV call the idea of a merger "highly tentative" with many thinking it is a step too far for NTL. The cableco admits to talks with the troubled broadcaster, but raising the estimated £4.4 billion market price may prove it's downfall as NTL only reported yesterday that its quarterly loss increased to £96 million from £52 million due to the charges need to finance the Telewest and Virgin deals.

Idle talk or serious bid? Watch this space.

Ever since they finally signed the deal back in April, ntl Telewest and Virgin Mobile have been hush hush on their new market name.

Now they have revealed that they will collectively been known as Virgin Media following a re-branding in the first quarter of 2007. Until the re-brand, ntl Telewest will continue to provide services under its existing brand name and Virgin Mobile will continue as part of the new Virgin Media group.

It has also committed an additional £5 million in 2006 to improve customer care for NTL Telewest to being it's customer support to the same levels of that of Virgin Mobile.

Also they have revealed that as well as the trials to provide users with 20Mbps broadband they will be starting further trials to give some lucky customers a 50Mbps service which will start in November 2006.

Well not exactly foreplay, but quadplay, as NTL:Telewest and Virgin Mobile (who are actually one and the same) are offering a launched new package offering broadband, TV, home phone and mobile phone for £40 a month.

The broadband part of the package will offer a 2Mb broadband connection but it will have no download limits and will include the usual firewall, antivirus & modem, digital TV with over 30 channels, a home phone with unlimited weekend calls to any UK landline and a Virgin Mobile SIM card with 300 texts and 300 minutes a month.

Unlimited foreplay may cost you a bit more.....

NTL/Telewest is taking on BT and Sky by giving a free digital TV service to anyone taking its home phone service which starts from £11 per month.

Customers will get Sky One and high definition TV channels along with all of the channels available to Freeview. The deal will include the company's recently launched TV Drive. This is basically the same as the Sky personal video recorder (PVR) and holds up to 80 hours of TV as well as being able to burn programmes to DVD.

This will only be available to around 80 percent of customers in Telewest areas though, but NTL have said it hopes to get the PVR and TV on-demand services will be available to all its customers by the end of the year.

NTL customers who on their current 1Mbps service will see their speeds doubled to 2Mbps in the next few months.

The free upgrade is to bring the service in line with those from Telewest due their merger back in march this year. A spokesperson for the company said that all of it's 1Mbps customers would be upgraded by the end of the year.

Customers of NTL's lowest speed product have done pretty well, back at the end of 2001 when it was launched users only had a 128Kbps service, now this is 2Mbps for the same price.

Now Telewest customers have received recent speed increases, now according to the Cable Forum so are NTL.

According to their sources from June 1st NTL will upgrade it's customers speeds for free, current 2Mbps customers will double to 4Mbps and also see the upload doubled to 400Kbps.
Those on the 10Mbps will see their package changed to an 'unlimited' one to being it into line with NTL's other offerings.

While some may think giving customers an 10Mbps unlimited connection maybe verging on suicidal, NTL are not adverse to slipping in traffic shaping without any notice. Although this has since been reversed it may not be long before it's back on the agenda.

After months of 'will they won't they' NTL:Telewest have finally done a deal with Virgin Mobile to buy the company.

The £962.4 million deal will allow the company to offer a 'quadruple-play' product - mobile, fixed-line telephone, broadband and TV service all under the same brand. NTL bought Virgin.net in 2004 and now the new company will be rebranded with the Virgin name within the next 12 months, although Virgin Mobile will remain independent for the next 12 months as the company focuses on the integration of Telewest.

Many in the industry see this as a positive deal, and customers like the 'one bill' approach to their communications. The full press release is at the NTL website.

Cable telco NTL have quietly slipped a traffic shaping clause into their terms and conditions (T&C) will allow them to manage (i.e. throttle) data transfer.

Although it's not know if this has actually been implemented, at the present many customers are unhappy about the lack of any communication coming from NTL. It seems that it will only be applied at peak times, between 6and 11pm, but as many users of ISP's who have used traffic shaping can vouch for it's an extremely complex process, which all too often ends in tears for users.

The use of  shaping may be as a direct result of NTL's speed upgrades, with many now on 10Mbps connections it is possible that NTL haven't really upgraded it's infrastructure to cope with the extra demands.

Whether more ISP's will follow down this route due to the ever faster ADSL speeds remains to be seen, but hopefully it will be with more communication.

NTL's latest newsletter has a small shock for it's customers, no more free support.

From May 8th it's free 0800 number to get hold of it's customer service centre is being replaced by an 0845 number charged at local rates. But things get even worse for broadband users, they will be forced to use a number charged at national rates.
The real annoyance will be how long users will have to be kept on hold, knowing that they are paying for the convenience of waiting!

NTL are offering a free tool called Broadband Medic which it claims can help users with online tutorials, but really isn't much of a help to many users as it only offers very basic help on a few subjects.

The new numbers to contact supports are:-

• 0845 454 0000 for all customer service calls.
• 0871 225 1111 for all Broadband technical issues.

Telcos NTL and Telewest have finally signed the deal to form a merger between the two.

The combined company has been renamed NTL Incorporated, and it's joint network can service more than 12 million homes, 50% of UK households, and 85% of UK businesses. At the present time it has approximately 5 million customers.

Former NTL stockholders now around roughly 75% of the combined company, and Telewest stockholders the other 25%, but for the man on the street, things will not appear to be any different as they will operate as two companies for the time being.

According to a report by the BBC's Watchdog programme, NTL still has a problem with customer service.

It has received 1,700 complains in the past 11 months, and this is after it's plans to invest £100 million in improving customer services. The TV show has received 1,700 complains about NTL in the last 11 months despite assurances from the cableco last year that it planned to invest £100m in customer service.

NTL rejected the claims and said improvements had been made.

It seems that cableco NTL is ready to offer more money to shareholders of Virgin Mobile in the never ending saga of it's takeover plans.

Virgin snubbed the last offer last month which would have give shareholders £3.23 per share, this time the likely figure is rumoured to be between £3.65 and £3.70 a share. Although originally Virgin wanted a figure of £4.00 a share, this seems unlikely.

Richard Branson, the major shareholder, is also reportedly planning to swap his 72 per cent of Virgin shares for a 14 per cent holding in the merged company.
If the deal comes off, the whole group will be rebadged under the virgin logo creating a company with over 10 million customers.

NTL has had a top level shake-up ready for it's merger with fellow cable telco Telewest.

Stephen Burch has been appointed as NTL's president and CEO and he will keep this role after the two companies are merged. He has extensive experience in the cable and telco market having been with US cable outfit Comcast for the last 17 years.Simon Duffy, who was the previous CEO becomes the executive vice chairman, and will still try drive the Virgin deal which he masterminded.

Rumours have it that the appointment was pressured by US investors on NTL who see Mr Burch as a 'golden boy'.

Cableforum have revealed that NTL is planning to drop it's download caps in January.

Users on it's 1Mbps and 2Mbps connections will effectively have 'unlimited' connections for no extra price increase, those on the 10Mbps service will still have to keep below 75GB per month.

When the NTL broadband usage limits started in February 2003, the usage allowance was 1GB per day, later reworded to 30GB a month. At the present all NTL customers are currently under a usage restriction that forbids excessive usage. Customers who ignore the restrictions and continue to go over the usage allowance, face having their broadband speed lowered to 512K.

They are also offering a free internet security tool called Netguard, for all their broadband customers, which is worth £40.

Although it's £817m bid for Virgin Mobile was rejected, NTL still recon that it was a good deal for shareholders.

In the bid it promised to pay £3.23 per share to Virgin Mobiles shareholders, of which Richard Branson owns 72% saying that it represented "better value for all Virgin Mobile shareholders". But shareholders are sitting pretty as NTL's bid pushed it's share price to £3.61, which is just as well as NTL are standing by their bid and now it looks unlikely to increase it.

Over to you Virgin.....

NTL will begin to screen new customers to check their credit history and possibly rejecting those with a chequered past.

The move, which is almostl unheard of in the ISP market, was announced today with it's latest financial results, although NTL admits that the screening process will reduce the numbers signing to it's services.

One wonders why the sudden move, but an NTL spokesman said it was to "improve the quality of customer adds, decrease bad debt and improve involuntary churn" and that the policy was "right for the long-term health of the business,"

Also of note that amongst all the information released by NTL there was only patchy details of the recently announced 10Mbps upgrade, and no technical details on the proposed upstream speed, or if it will be available to all users as previously thought.

Cable provider NTL have re-launched it internet portal, with it being designed for broadband users.

It offers more online tools, rich media content and entertainment features with branding from BBC, Google ITN, Ebay and otehr UK companies. This is along with improved help and customer service guides.

To coincide with the launch it is offering new customers a 1Mbps connection for £9.99 with the price fixed for twelve months. Users will have to sign up by mid July.

Cable provider NTL have entered into the cheap broadband arena, offering new customers a 1Mbps connection for £9.99 per month, a saving of £7 a month over the standard charge of £17.99

It comes with all the usual extras and free connection, but includes a 3GB monthly limit, although NTL have said that this won't be enforced until later this year. The downside, as with most offers, is that it only applies for twelve months with the price reverting to the standard rate after this time.

The offer ends on the 11th July with details over at NTL.

Ericsson has been selected by UK based broadband operator ntl as its IP DSLAM supplier to trial ADSL2+ DSL services, in order to explore the broadband capability of its on-net copper access network.

Using the turbo powered broadband capability ntl has been able to demonstrate both ultra-high speed Internet services and the successful delivery of high-definition television (HDTV) via the IP stream. The ntl trial, the first in the UK using ADSL2+, has proven broadband connections with downstream line rates in excess of 18Mbits/s without any modification to their copper access infrastructure.

Under the trial, Ericsson provides ntl with its modular EDA IP DSLAM, and an advanced feature set for IP video services across a broadband network based on ADSL2+ and Gb Ethernet.

NTL has beefed up security for it's cable customers due to a deal with Openwave announced yesterday.

The anti-abuse" system to protect customers from viruses and Trojans, and eventually spam as well, is provided by Openwave's Edge Gx Anti-Abuse product designed especially for ISP's to protect customers. According to Openwave it is preventing 20 million mail messages a day from entering the NTL network.

The deployment of Edge Gx Anti-Abuse with anti-virus filtering from McAfee marks the successful completion of stage one in NTL’s plan to enhance the overall customer experience.
The next stage will be to implement anti-spam filtering from Brightmail to enhance the overall effectiveness of the system.

Who is the largest broadband provide in the UK? It depends on who you ask!

NTL have laid claim to the prize as it announced the results of a survey, which it commissioned, claiming over 200,000 more punters than it's nearest rival BT Retail. They quickly dismissed the claim stating it actually had 150,000 more than NTL.

NTL subscribers may soon be enjoying the dizzy heights of 24Mbps broadband, as the ISP and network operator is trialing ADSL2+ technology on their network.

The cable operator can potentially achieve such speeds, in excess of BTs forthcoming ADSL2+ trial of up to 18Mbps, due to NTLs network being more fibre based (ie more suited to high speed data flow) than BTs copper one (which conversely, is not). NTL claim that 95% of their network is within 1,000 meters of subscribers homes, compared to BTs, at what seems like a paltry 5%.

This 'distance thing' is an important aspect of the new technology that ultimately, we guess all ADSL connections in the UK will one day be based upon - even more so than what has been seen with current ADSL technology.

With ADSL2+, speed is more adversely affected, as distance from the exchange to the home is increased - but at a higher rate than with ADSL. Ironically, at around just 2.5km from the exchange, ADSL starts to be able to offer higher speed than ADSL2+.

Undoubtedly, we'll be hearing from the marketing folk at NTL about this over the coming weeks and months.

NTL's financial woes seem to be coming to an end with it cutting £100m off it's losses last year.

After the decision to restructure its business and focus on broadband meant operating losses fell 80 per cent from £192.4m to £39m for the year to the end of December as revenues rose 8.7 per cent to £1.5bn.
This was due in part to a 40 per cent growth in broadband subscribers to 1.33m, included in this are is the 62,000 of those were added following the acquisition of rival ISP  Virgin.net in November. 

NTL estimates that the number of cable broadband connections it services will continue to grow by around 20 to 25 per cent during 2005.

According to cableforum.co.uk the speed increases which were reported by UK-Bug back in January are due to become a reality.

It says it has received 'reliable information' that from today (March 8th) ntl customers on 1Mbps to 3Mbps connections with be contacted to inform them of the upgrades. These will be taking place within the next few weeks for those on 750Kbps and 1.5Mbps connection speeds, but some users may find it will be several months before they are upgraded due to network capacity issues. Customers can either upgrade online or by calling customer services.

Once upgraded to the new speeds there will be no opportunity to switch back to the old speeds.

ntl won't be aggressively targeting those who exceed the usage allowance, those with a 1GB per day allowance will only be contacted if it become excessive or affects other users. The 3GB per month allowance won't be enforced until later on during the year

According to a leaked memo posted on the ntl:hell forums NTL intends to "match or beat ALL BT Broadband products on price, speed and usage allowance", taking affect from mid March.

Also on offer is that it intends to offer free email, security and personal webspace as standard on all it's connections, which now number more than a million broadband users.

Whether it's all icing on the cake remains to be seen, especially as it's previous offer seems to have a sting in the tail, although the same memo notes that they won't actually be checking the allowance until "until later this year".

The freebies will come as standard on all new connections, but existing customers will have to contact NTL to request the free upgrades.

It seems ntl was caught on the hop by the BT announcement last week to upgrade it's users to 2Mbps automatically without cost.

Back when God was a boy we detailed how NTL were setting the trend of doubling up end users broadband speeds for no extra monthly charge. The CableForum website yesterday announced some further details - one of which, has a bit of a sting in its tail.

As can be seen in the table above, not much changes for the majority of the packages, except for existing NTL customers using a 300Kbps service. Those that choose to be upgraded to the new 1Mbps speed (free of charge), will find their monthly usage allowance, dropped from 30GB to a staggering 3GB, just a couple of hours worth of use.

Its currently rumoured that those users exceeded their allotted bandwidth allowance, will find their service is reduced to 56Kbps

Upgrades are expected to start rolling out in 4 weeks.

If rumour is to be believed (and we often cite its not), NTL's recently speed increase which sees download speeds increased by as much as 300% on some products, could have a nasty sting in its tail for many the ISPs cable broadband users.

According to the usually correct, <a href="http://www.cableforum.co.uk" tagret=BLANK>Cable Forum, rumour has it that NTL could be changing the upload part of the broadband connection on its soon to be introduced 1Mbit, 2Mbit and 3Mbit products. The upload will change to 100, 200 and 300Kbps respectively.

Nothing concrete as of yet from NTL themselves, but if we hear anything, you will too.

NTL has revealed that its finally planning to meter its nearly 1.5 million customers from next year, introducing monthly caps of 5, 30 and 40GB on the ISPs 1, 2 and 3Mbit products respectively, according to the CableForum web site, following an announcement at a conference by NTLs top dog, Simon Duffy.

There's no word as of yet as to if or when Telewest's Blueyonder are to join suit and introduce caps on its 256k, 750k 1.5Mbit or 3Mbit offerings.

NTL have announced that their existing 300K entry level cable modem service is changing to be 1MB from next year while still costing £17.99 a month along with other price changes.

The speed increases will be rolled out to new customers during the first three months of next year, although existing customers will have to pay a £25 "administration fee" to change to the new tariffs. Said NTL chief exec Simon Duffy:

NTLs 3rd quarter results can be found here (PDF).

According to (not entirely surprising) reports on dedicated cable broadband resource site CableForum.co.uk, NTL will soon be offering up to 3Mbit cable broadband connections, due in part to the companies recent NTL network expansion, costing around £65m that was announced in September.

We've also seen today that BT have now invited ISPs to partake in the forthcoming IPStream Home 2000 product trial - a service eagerly awaited by the industry - and by ISPs alike. Expect a rush of "come and join our 2mbit trial" from ISPs in due course. BT responding quickly ?

The trial is expected to commence on the 29th November 2004, lasting for an initial 8 weeks.

NTL's 3 million customers can expect improved connectivity following an agreement announced today with specialist backbone provider, Level 3 Communications.

NTL have purchased multiple high speed ports from Level3, 2.5Gb ports for Manchester and and 10Gb ports in London, this should enhance their network performance on both domestic and transatlantic routes.

Only last week Cable and Wireless announced ambitious plans to invest over £100million in Local Loop Unbundling through its recently acquired Bulldog operation. Now rival cable operator NTL have announced a similar plan.

Reportedly investing up to £65million, NTL plan on unbundling around 300 of the UKs busiest exchanges which is estimated to see potential subscriber growth rise by 2million to around 10 million countrywide.

With BTs price cuts in the LLU arena, the UK is starting to see the realisation of such measures, and we do not expect LLU announcements to cease here. Expect more from the likes of Wanadoo who have expressed interest in this area in the future.

NTL has abandoned a trial of Wireless broadband in the Milton Keynes area citing any rollout would "not be commercial viable".

The trial which involved dedicated hardware installed in each of the 90 trialists premesis, saw a significant problem with 'line of sight' issues - trees would you believe. Wireless connectivity was always going to be the 2nd choice - more so given the relative success of the Long Reach trial for ADSL currently continuing in the same area.

Back in April, we reported how NTL mimicked their cable broadband rival Telewest by increasing the speed of their broadband offerings - in some cases, by a clear 100% - and for free too! It's been a long time coming, but the dates have now been finalised if a couple of the emails we've received today are anything to go by. Remember that these dates are not confirmed by NTL at this stage.

According to the emails, the upgrade to the NTL packages commences from the 1st August for the 150Kbps to 300Kbps, 600Kbps to 750Kbps and 1Mbps to 1.5Mbps services for Stand Alone modem subscribers. Those subscribers connecting to the broadband service through Set Top Box get almost the same treatment, bar the slightly longer wait for the 1Mbps to 1.5Mbps upgrade, which will start rollouts from the 1st September.

NTL are currently offering the chance to experience their NTLBroadband service free of charge for 60 days.

You must live in a NTL cabled area capable of receiving NTL Broadband (NTLFreedom seems to be excluded), but you'll get a free cable modem, and no charges are due in any way. Before or on the 60th day, make the decision - continue the service and subscribe at the prevailing rate, or cancel and not pay a penny. Continuation of the service after the free trial will attract the remainder of NTLs 12 month contract (effectively 10 months).

A warning however. An unusual condition of the offer is that should you take up the free trial, NTL will not let you subscribe to any other broadband offer for a minimum of 3 years after you've had the trial.

No details on NTLs website yet, but you can call NTL on 0800 183 5555 for more info.

NTL has today finally launched the much rumoured Freedom service, giving the public the chance to use NTL as an ISP over BTs ADSL service.

Until now, NTL's broadband services have only been available in some NTL cabled areas, but todays launch of Freedom sees NTL opening their network and services to a much wider subscriber base who are able to get an ADSL service, but fancy using NTL.

Costing £29.99 per month the service is a standard 512K unlimited bandwidth services and comes with free connection (worth £58.75) and a free ADSL modem (worth £35.23). Subscribers would however, be tied to a 12 month contract. The service also entices subscribers to switch their telephony provider by also providing £15 worth telephone calls every month, effectively reducing your broadband subscription to £14.99 per month for an unlimited 512k ADSL service.

You can find more about NTL Freedom Broadband over at NTLFreedom.com.

NTL have today penned an agreement with reborn MP3 sharing network Napster, providing access to the P2P operators vast collection of over 700,000 legal MP3 files.

Subscribers to NTLs Broadband Plus package (first announced last November) will have the option of bumping up their existing £3.99 content addon premium to include access to the Napster network for a price of £9.95, equating to an increase of £5.95 just for access to Napster.

Access to the P2P network is charged at £9.95 per month when subscribing to Napster direct.

Cable operator NTL have announced plans to invest over £66 million on a network upgrade in Ireland, driving wider availability of the ISPs broadband services.

The news coming a day after regulator OFCOM detailed how NTLs availability in the UK sits below 50% within the UK, and loosing out to the dominant BT in terms of availability.

Those eagerly awaiting the reported imminent release of NTLs ADSL service might need to wait a little longer.

Initially schedule for a July launch, UK-Bug has been informed that the launch has been put back until at least August - with no reason given.

No official comment on this from NTL is available, and the ISPs customer service team when prompted are quoting "soon".

Cable ISP, NTL have announced that all new subscribers to the ISPs 150k, 600k and 1Mb broadband products will benefit from half price monthly subscriptions for the first 3 months.

The offer results in a bargain offer of a broadband connection for less than £10 per month- which is quite possibly a first for the UK, even if it is only for 3 months.

The half price discount results in the following prices being applicable :

More information can be found on the NTLHome homepage.

The Register has discovered some more details of NTL's forthcoming ADSL launch which was reported here at UK-Bug last week.

It says it has seen documents to support the rumours floating about of NTL's venture outside cable.

The ntl:freedom broadband service is a standard 512k connection and includes 15 e-mail addresses and 55Mb of webspace. Also included is NTL's "off-net" 321 phone service as an alternative to standard BT phone charges, these being 3p minute during the day, 2p a minute in the evenings and 1p a minute during weekends for local and national calls.
The pricing is expected to be £27.99 a month.

Also on offer is "Broadband International" which is basically the same the freedom package, but includes the "International Call Plan" which offers cheaper international calls. The pricing is £2 more expensive than the basic package at £29.99.

Both packages are planned to go live at the start of July with free connection and a free modem.

According to a report on Digital Spy cable provider NTL are planning to move out of their franchise areas and offer ADSL to those who live outside of the cabled areas.

The price which is being banded about seems expensive at £29.99 a month but rumours say this will include £15 of call charges, making the net ADSL charge of just under £15. There has been no details of installation charges at the present.

If all the gossip is correct the service is set to launch on July 1, 2004.

Watch this space!!

NTL must have caught the bug from BTYahoo!!, as we reported earlier on UK-Bug regarding BT's mail problems, not to be outdone NTL have joined suit!!

Many of NTL's customers are unable to send any e-mail after two of it's mail servers have failed in what they call a 'complex failure'. Earlier it was reported that there were no problems receiving of mail (unless it was send by an NTL user!), but this also seems to be in troublesome state at the moment.

The NTL status page states:-